Bullies do not necessarily suffer from low self esteem, as has commonly been believed.

School psychologist Roberta (Bobbie) Tundermann, who specialises in social interactions, in particular bullying prevention which she sees in children as young as kindergarten age, works on bullying prevention at a Connecticut elementary school.

"One of the myths of bullying is that bullies are people with low self confidence, but actually they are people with fairly good self confidence," said Dr. Tundermann who was in Bermuda today for the Altrusa Club of Bermuda's 51st anniversary dinner last night. She is the Governor for District One under which Bermuda falls.

"Bullies tend to be very successful at getting other groups of kids to go along with them, so they are pretty confident," the psychologist has found.

"The issue is power. There are people who have a love of power, they get a thrill from exerting power and watching people suffer under their power. That is what bullying is about...a power issue.

"So we need to tip the balance of power, we need to get the watchers - the other 80 percent of kids - to join in with the victim so they at least have equal or better power saying `we don't treat people like that, you cannot do this'."

On Monday of this week Oprah Winfrey tackled the issue of peer pressure amongst teens and the need to feel accepted and liked. Children on the show admitted they often go to great lengths to be accepted.

"I am a school psychologist at an elementary, kindergarten through fifth grade, and when I speak to five-year-olds in kindergarten they already have a very good idea of what bullying is all about," said Dr. Tundermann.

"They have already experienced it in pre-school. What we do in our school is to take a preventative approach to bullying because 80 percent of children are not involved in bullying, they are watchers, and are the biggest opportunity for preventing the problem. If they don't come to the aid of their friends we can't solve the problem."

Dr. Tundermann says she has seen the incidents of bullying increase over the last couple of decades. It is often the victim, in their cry for help, who takes a gun or knife to school and carries out an act that makes national headlines.

"Bullying is a problem worldwide, and nations such as England, Norway and Japan have nationally mandated bullying prevention programmes because they are aware of how significant the problem is worldwide," said Dr. Tundermann.

"The United States is only just becoming aware of the necessity of having comprehensive bullying prevention programmes. At my school we focus on something which is developing in the states called character education programmes.

"A school social worker and I worked together to develop this plan, where, between the two of us, we do weekly meetings with all classrooms for half an hour. We talk on all different issues of good character and how you handle bullies and how to be assertive so you are not vulnerable to bullies. We need to keep our schools safe."

Some child bullies learn their behaviour from parents and an older sibling and are likely to continue bullying into adulthood themselves.

"Bullies have a very high rate of criminal activity as adults," the psychologist disclosed.

"Bullies often go home to bullies, that's where they learn it. Oftentimes the bullies are victims at home, they are bullied by a parent or an older sibling. They learn it well.

"The victim can be anybody at any time. They tend to be people who are shyer, quieter and don't necessarily look different and are not necessarily children with disabilities, though that is certainly where my interest first came in because I worked a lot with children with disabilities."

Added Dr. Tundermann: "We have to do a lot of work with the parents, training them that bullying is harmful, is a big deal, and should not be a normal part of growing up.

"I see a higher rate of bullying now than I did 24 years ago. That's one of the reasons I did my dissertation on bullying when I did my doctorate, which I finished two years ago."

Peer pressure is another spinoff of bullying with children siding with the bully so as not to be bullied themselves.

"The bully pressures other more vulnerable kids to join them and become partners with them in the bullying," said Dr. Tundermann.

"They cave in to the pressure because they don't want to be bullied and that's one way to prevent them from being bullied. They want to fit in and see the bully as a popular person, and many times they are a popular person.

"They are rarely successful in bullying if they are alone, they much prefer to have many others with them to gang up. Their prime areas are the playground, lunchroom, hallways, busses...those unstructured, less supervised areas."

Dr. Tundermann says bullies are "extremely adept at hiding their behaviour from adults".

"Bullies don't generally don't give excuses, they are in denial that their behaviour is bullying at all," said the psychologist.

"They always project bullying on the other person. `I didn't do that, he's got it wrong', he started it, it's his fault, he hit me first'. Children who hit back get it worst, so we don't recommend the targets of bullies hit back.

"It's recommended as part of a bullying prevention programme to have regular surveys of the children. We have a survey that says `how often have you seen bullying, do you see it weekly, daily, monthly' and our rates have seen weekly and daily bullying equal the national average for the United States, which is about 78 percent of kids have experienced bullying on a daily basis."

Dr. Tundermann believes the problem can be tackled, but only with both the schools and parents working together.

"It is the job of the school to assist the victims and speak to the parents and the bullies about how unacceptable their behaviour is," she stressed.

"And to believe the victim. One of the biggest fears the victim has is people don't believe them, that they are being intimidated. "The bully in the school becomes the bully in the workplace, and that is a huge issue today, too. There are a lot of websites on that, it's an interesting topic."

Dr. Tundermann is a frequent guest lecturer at area colleges, school districts and associations on the topic of bullying prevention and character education.

Together with the school's social worker, she co-founded a community centre in an at-risk neighbourhood served by her school. The Hillcrest Area Neighbourhood Outreach Centre (HANOC) became a collaborative effort involving principals, teachers, the West Hartford Public Schools administration, the Town of West Hartford administration, a local business, local church and families. -The HANOC Programme has been the recipient of the MAGMA Award, a national award for effective educational programmes.

"Bullying is an age old problem, I have not met a person who did not know a bully...or a victim," she admits.

"Whenever I do speeches that is the first thing I ask and people will stand up and tell their stories, about what they have seen or experienced themselves."